Waiting for the Barbarians to Come to Bed

My first impressions of J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians are…well…hard to explain without sounding condescending (so give me the benefit of the doubt for a second). Thus far, we have been exposed to only one named character, Colonel Joll. The narrative has been exclusively about Joll's multiple methods of inflicting pain and the sexual conquests of the magistrate. Forgive me for missing the point, but the magistrate knows that Joll uses horrific methods of torture towards the “barbarians.” Yet, with that knowledge the magistrate chooses to spend all of his time in the bedroom? An inordinate amount of time is spent on the magistrate’s sexual life, which makes me think that this book has been improperly titled and should be called “Waiting for the Barbarians to Come to Bed.” It is painful to read about the magistrate's neglect toward people he cares about, the two “barbarian” women with whom he finds comfort. I can only hope that Mr. Coetzee has a plan to apply his literary talent to a subject larger than the magistrate’s night life.

On the other hand, I could hypothesize that by taking this approach, J.M. Coetzee could be emphasizing a main point; that people often refuse to take a stand against atrocities committed against their own race. This hypothesis could be illuminated by Coetzee’s absence of details, with no explanation of the names, time period, and exact locations.This lack of identity could be Coetzee’s way of insisting that there is no sense in naming these characters. There are all too many people who and places which fit these personas. If this is the statement that J.M. Coetzee is trying to reveal, then he has done so with excruciating detail and fervor.

Lissa Schneider’s Iconography and the Feminine Ideal

• Reveals the possible larger representative functions of the passage
  (p.24) with the blindfolded woman holding a torch to illuminate:
  
  1. “Mankind groping blindly through the darkness of his existence.”
  2. “The isolation of European women with the isolation of idealism.”
  
• Employed by the manager, the spy’s obsession with Kurtz’s discarded painting demonstrates the company men’s hunger for power over one another.
  
• The men’s inability to understand any of the imagery and symbolism in the painting illustrates their “limited understanding and mocks their grasping bids for power.”
  

Dilsey Sees All

Unlike many satisfying novels, Faulkner does not provide a neat, tidy ending to The Sound and the Fury. Instead, Faulkner leaves the reader with a desire for more information. Consistent with Faulkner’s style in the rest of the novel, information is presented in an indirect manner. Details are provided, but the reader has to decipher the meaning and put the puzzle together. In the final section of the novel, the reader can see that Faulkner uses many different characters to illustrate his concluding ideas about the Compson family. There is no possibility of a future for the Compson family. Their demise is shown through each of the surviving characters. It is most eloquently revealed by the wise and perceptive Dilsey. She is the only character associated with the Compson family who clearly sees their inability to function in the world around them. She continually reminds the reader that she has “seed de beginning, en now I sees de endin.” Dilsey is the only character who predicts the extinction of the Compson family. Throughout the novel Dilsey has been a reliable source of information regarding the Compsons. It is appropriate that she plays the role of the oracle.